Application interface for a data storage system

Abstract

An application interface is used to retrieve information from a data storage system and in particular, for a financial/business system or general ledger system. Data from the data storage system is retrieved using a data mart that supports a generalized or system-independent format. The interface instantiates a detail interface identified in a field of the data mart to communicate with, or drill back to, the data storage system to retrieve detailed data such as detail transaction data through an interface.

1 . A system for retrieving financial information from a financial data storage system, comprising: 
 an application interface configured to return requested detail information to an application program by accessing detail interface information in a data mart that stores the detail interface information for a plurality of detail interfaces, and to instantiate and invoke a detail interface based on the detail interface information to obtain the requested detail information.    
   
   
       2 . The system of  claim 1  and further comprising the detail interface operable to retrieve requested detail information from the financial data storage system.  
   
   
       3 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the application interface is configured to retrieve financial data from a financial system or general ledger system using the data mart.  
   
   
       4 . The system of  claim 3  wherein the application program is a reporting program configured to retrieve data to generate financial or account detail reports.  
   
   
       5 . The system of  claim 2  wherein the application interface is configured to retrieve transaction data for an account entry in the application through the detail interface identified by the detail interface information.  
   
   
       6 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the data mart includes a data field to store the detail interface information.  
   
   
       7 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the application interface is configured to receive an activation from a drilldown viewer in the application program.  
   
   
       8 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the detail information comprises detailed transaction data.  
   
   
       9 . The system of  claim 8  wherein the application interface is configured to receive a selected account entry for which to retrieve the detail transaction data.  
   
   
       10 . A method of displaying financial data stored in one of a plurality of financial data storage systems, comprising: 
 receiving a detail information request from an application;    retrieving detail interface information from a data mart;    instantiating a detail interface identified by the detail interface information;    retrieving the detail information requested from one of the financial data storage systems through the instantiated detail interface; and    returning the detail information to the application.    
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 10  wherein the financial data storage system comprises a general ledger system and retrieving the detail information comprises retrieving data from the general ledger system.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 10  wherein retrieving the detail information comprises: 
 receiving identity information indicative of the requested detail information from the application.    
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein retrieving the detail information comprises: 
 invoking the detail interface using the identity information to retrieve the requested detail information.    
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 13  wherein the detail identity information comprises selected account information.  
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 10  wherein receiving a detail information request comprises: 
 receiving an input from a drilldown viewer of an application program.    
   
   
       16 . A drilldown system used by an application program on a computer readable medium having a drilldown feature activatable to display transaction data from an open business system, comprising: 
 a drilldown interface to a data mart that stores detail interface information identifying a detail interface used to obtain detail information from the open business system.    
   
   
       17 . The drilldown system of  claim 16  wherein the drilldown interface is configured to instantiate the detail interface based on the interface information.  
   
   
       18 . The drilldown system of  claim 17  wherein the drilldown interface is configured to invoke the detail interface to retrieve detail information.  
   
   
       19 . The drilldown system of  claim 18  wherein the detail information comprises detailed transaction data supporting a line item in a report displayed by the application program.